The Scales are Wavering

Published:Novaya Zhizn, No. 16, November 18, 1905. Signed:N. Lenin.

      Published according to the text inNovaya Zhizn.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1965,

      Moscow,Volume 10,

      pages58-59.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Russia’spresent condition is often described as anarchy. In reality, this
incorrect and lying designation expresses the fact that there is no established
order in the country. The war of a new, free Russia against the old, feudal-
autocratic Russia is raging all along the line. The autocracy is no longer
strong enough to defeat the revolution, and the revolution is not yet strong
enough to defeat tsarism. The old regime has been smashed but not yet destroyed,
and the new, free order exists unrecognised, half-concealed, very often
persecuted by the minions of the autocratic regime.

Sucha state of affairs may last for quite a while yet, it will inevitably be
attended by manifestations of instability and vacillation in all spheres of
social and political life: people hostile to liberty, who now profess to be
friends of liberty by way of a military stratagem, will inevitably try to fish
in these troubled waters. But the longer this state of transition lasts, the
more surely will it lead to the complete and decisive victory of the
revolutionary proletariat and peasantry. For nothing opens the eyes of the most
ignorant masses of town and country so effectively, nothing so greatly rouses
even the most indifferent and most sleepy, as this long-drawn-out decay of the
autocracy, which has been condemned by all and has acknowledged its
condemnation.

Whatdo the latest political events tell us—this new and great strike of
the post and telegraph employees,[1]this growing ferment and growing
revolutionary organisation in the armed forces and even in the police, this
victory of politically-backward troops fettered by discipline over the army of
freedom in Sevastopol, this unparalleled slump ingovernment securities? They tell us that the autocracy is firing its last shots
and using up its last reserves. Even the stock exchange—loyal to the tsar
in its bourgeois cowardice and its bourgeois longing for the end of the
revolution— even the stock exchange has no faith in the
“victors” of Sevastopol. These events tell us that the revolutionary
people is steadily extending its conquests, rousing new fighters, exercising its
forces, improving its organisation and marching forward to victory, advancing as
irresistibly as an avalanche.

Theweapon of the political strike is being perfected; new contingents of
workers are now learning to wield this weapon, workers without whom a modern
civilised community cannot exist even for a single day. The awareness of the
need for freedom is growing in the armed forces and in the police, preparing new
centres of insurrection, new Kronstadts and new Sevastopols.

Thevictors of Sevastopol have hardly any reason for rejoicing. The Crimean
insurrection has been defeated. The insurrection of all Russia is invincible.

Letworker Social-Democrats therefore prepare for even greater events, which
will impose on them an immense responsibility!

Letthem not forget that only a solidly united Social Democratic Party can lead
the proletariat of Russia to victory, hand in hand with the Social-Democratic
proletariat of the whole world!

[1]Thegreat strike of post and telegraph employeeslasted from November 15 (28) to December 15 (28), 1905. It was provoked by the
authorities’ prohibition to form a union of post and telegraph employees and the
discharge of a number of employees who had taken part in organising the
union. The All-Russian Congress of the Post and Telegraph Union, which opened in
Moscow on November 15(28), resolved to send Premier Witte a telegram insisting
on the readmission of the discharged employees. The dead-line it set for a reply
was 1800 hours of the same day, November 15 (28). As the government had sent no
answer by the appointed time, the Congress circulated a telegram ordering a
strike. The strike involved the
 whole of Russia.